The extent of criminal liability?

Good examples! I hope the people of Phoenix realize that if justice is unreasonable in this case, they could be next.

 

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'DURING THE COMMISION OF A CRIME'

It is no different than someone punching another person in the chops and that person falls and hits their head on a rock.

do you:

a. blame the rock?
b. blame the victim for not being able to keep themself up?
c. blame the person who puched them?

of course this is an example and no contact need be made. iow, this guy is in serious shit.

 

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It's a lot different than that. It's like someone punching another person in the chops and some driver is distracted by it and kills a pedestrian.

 

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but that is not a direct result, as it was with the chopper pilots. if someone is chasing another person with the threat of bodily harm and the person being chased runs into the street and gets killed by a car then the person chasing the dead guy can be held responsible for his death. there is precedance for this.

in your example the driver acted upon his own free will, in the chopper case, the pilots would NOT have been up there were it not for the criminal behivior of the car jacker\thief.

put another way:

if a person steals a car and mows down a pedestrian while attempting to flee...YUP/

if a person steals a car (vehicle A) and a pedestrian runs to get out of the way and gets hit by another car (vehicle B) while attempting to flee...the operator of vehicle A can be charged.

 

The thing is, the guy in this case wasn't interacting with the chopper pilots in any way (unlike in your examples). If you insist on using examples of people who are all only involved because of criminal behavior, suppose I shoplift something and two cops in different cars start to drive to the store to arrest me. On the way they crash into each other and die. Am I responsible for their death?

 

Agreed. That's okay by me.

OK, change my example to: It's like someone punching another person in the chops and someone driving over to watch kills a pedestrian. Let that driver off the hook for the pedestrian and instead charge the puncher you say? Anyone gawking at a crime scene is not responsible for their actions?

That's fine.

That's fine.

 

If you changed it to two news vans that collided while driving to a crime scene to cover a story, I think everyone would immediately see how silly it is. For some reason the fact that it involves helicopters makes people switch their brain off or something.

 

Police should just shoot tyres and get it over and done with from the get go. I don't get the point of some of these chases. It's like they let it go on for the sake of filming for TV show. That said the helicopter pilots were both morons in this case the loss of helicopters and lives shouldn't be blamed on anyone but themselves.

 

no they risked it they dident have to come out there, i mean if he hit someone fair enough but the helicopter crash canot be blamed on them.

 

During the commision of a crime-

http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Man_Convicted_of_Murder_From_30_Miles_Away/all

 

Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

John99

The Digg link comes back to the fact that police officers are obliged to respond to the crime.

Consider for a moment, please, yesterday's article at AZ Central:

.... NTSB board member Steve R. Chealander said witnesses repeatedly stated that one of the helicopters crashed into the other, which was stationary at the time of the accident. He stressed, though, that those accounts were unconfirmed and that the accident will be investigated in great detail.

The NTSB expects to have a preliminary report on the accident by Friday and provide a more detailed review in about nine months ....

.... FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said the pilots of the five news helicopters and one police chopper over the chase were not talking to air traffic controllers at the time, which is normal.

"Typically air traffic controllers clear helicopters into an area where they can cover a chase like this," Gregor said. "Once they are in the area, the pilots themselves are responsible for keeping themselves separated from other aircraft."

Pilots generally use a dedicated radio frequency to talk to each other and maintain their positions, Gregor said.

"There is a high degree of coordination," Gregor said. "To fly for a TV station you have to have a commercial rating, which means more (flight hours), more training." ....

.... Keith McCutchen, a past president of the National Broadcast Pilots Association and a news pilot for 11 years in Indianapolis, said pilot awareness is vital while on the scene of a story because of the many distractions that could spell trouble.

"You are watching the scene. You have to bring your attention inside to look at the monitors to see what the audience is seeing so you can converse. But you're also having to direct your attention to the other aircraft flying around you. You have to have your head on a swivel in those kinds of situations." (AZ Central)​

Will the NTSB report come back and say negligence on the part of one of the pilots? If they choose to enter the zone, their conduct as pilots is their own responsibility. It's not like one of the choppers ran into the other trying to avoid a fireball caused when the suspect crashed into a gas station, or anything.

The trial will most likely be delayed until after the NTSB report is issued. The defense will enter into evidence statements characterizing the crash as a result of a pilot error. Will such evidence be allowed? If yes, the prosecutor will be left telling the jury, "It doesn't matter that someone else was at fault. It doesn't matter that the deaths of three other people rest in one pilot's hands. The law instructs you to ignore that fact and convict this man on four counts of manslaughter."

In a way, I kind of want to hear someone say that in court. It would certainly be a defining moment.

All of this presumes, of course, that the suspect can afford a lawyer. I don't know about Arizona, but up in Washington state, public defenders more often than not work any potential trial situation into a plea angle, regardless of the defendant's chances of winning.

Any given statute works well enough until the circumstance it doesn't account for arises.

I suppose we should wait until the charges are filed, though.

Why not blame the Palestinians, for instance, for the death of Rachel Corrie? Hell, Americans were so anxious to denounce a dead woman that they didn't even stop to think that they could have blamed a 10 year-old Palestinian boy.

 

Coincidentally from Arizona: police responding to a report of an exorcism (that's right, folks) arrive at the scene to find a man choking his three year-old granddaughter, attempting to "squeeze the demons out of the young girl," as investigators put it. The girl's mother is naked and bloodied, and the grandmother is holding a religious icon of some sort and chanting to assist the exorcism. Police rescued the girl, and then, in their attempt to subdue the 48 year-old suspect, Taser him twice. Shortly after they handcuffed the man, he began experiencing breathing difficulties. Police attempted CPR, and the suspect was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Should the grandmother be charged in the death of the exorcist?

Read the details at AZ Central.

 

Slate.com is taking some time to examine the very issues we're considering here. Unfortunately, Michelle Tsai isn't having much more success.

It all depends on why you're running and where you are. In most states, you can be convicted of first-degree murder, even if you didn't intend for someone to die ....

.... Does it matter that the reporters in the fatal helicopter crash presumably put themselves in harm's way? Probably. The county attorney technically can charge the fleeing suspect with four counts of murder, but it's unclear how strong the argument would be in practice. A judge might decide not to apply felony-murder because the cause of the crash was only loosely related to the chase. Or a jury might acquit the driver because he couldn't possibly have foreseen these outcomes. In other words, a reasonable person could expect traffic deaths to result from a car chase. But it might be unreasonable to expect a car chase to cause a collision between choppers pursuing a breaking news story. (Slate.com)​

The Arizona statute appears to classify the suspect's actions as first degree murder (see A.R.S. 13-1105). One need not intend to cause death in Arizona to be convicted of first degree murder. In theory, if you sell someone some marijuana, and while they are smoking it at home a seed penetrates the screen in their bolt-pipe, causing them to choke and cough, and while stumbling to the fridge for a soda to wash away the burn, they trip and fall down the stairs, you appear to be guilty of first-degree murder. It's a messed up law; to the other, it is the applicable law.

Interesting. But, therein lies the answer. I can't believe, given that it took me less than five minutes to find the law once I started looking for it, that I didn't bother to do this before. Of course, I can't believe Michelle Tsai didn't, either.

So take note: it's best to stay the hell out of Arizona.

 

I didn't find anything in the link that you provided to indicate that. It says "...and in the course of and in furtherance of the offense or immediate flight from the offense, the person or another person causes the death of any person." I would construe it to mean that the death (or injury leading to death, I suppose) has to occur while you are actually in the act of committing the crime. If someone falls down their stairs after smoking marijuana that you sold them, their death didn't occur "in the course of and in furtherance of the offense or immediate flight from the offense."

 

No.

I'd charge the news organizations with puting the public at risk by such irresponsible use of a helicopter over a populated area.

 

And/or?

I constructed the scenario specifically to cover this point. The issue that set the victim into motion in the first place is a direct result of the illegal action.

Acting either alone or with one or more other persons the person commits or attempts to commit ... , marijuana offenses under section 13-3405 ... the person or another person causes the death of any person. (ARS 13-1105)​

If we compare your presentation of the statute to what is written in the statute:

.... or unlawful flight from a pursuing law enforcement vehicle under section 28-622.01 and in the course of and in furtherance of the offense or immediate flight from the offense, the person or another person causes the death of any person. (ibid)​

The phrase you quoted--"in the course of and in furtherance of the offense or immediate flight from the offense"--pertains specifically to unlawful flight from law enforcement, which is merely one of the many conditions included in paragraph A.2 of 13-1105, e.g.,

• sexual assault, or
• sexual conduct with a minor, or
• molestation of a child, or,
• terrorism, or
• marijuana offense, or
• dangerous drug offenses, or
• narcotics offenses ... that equal or exceed the statutory threshold amount for each offense or combination of offenses, or
• involving minors in drug offenses, or
• kidnapping, or
• arson, or
• robbery, or
• escape, or
• child abuse, or
• unlawful flight from a pursuing law enforcement vehicle ... and in the course of and in furtherance of the offense or immediate flight from the offense
• causes the death of any person​

Note the number of times the word "or" comes up. Without it, as such, the law doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

One need not be in flight to invoke the murder charge. One only needs the death to occur in the context of any of the listed crimes. In fact, if you look at the clause about unlawful flight, it starts with "or". An "Oxford comma" would need to precede the word "and", which occurs immediately before your quote begins, in order to restrict the issue to flight from any of those crimes.

Note on Edit: I should also mention that the scenario of falling down the stairs is based partially on experience. Nobody fell down the stairs, but I did once pull a burning seed through a damaged screen. I'm glad I didn't have to attempt any stairs. Additionally, these days, I don't use screens, resulting in frequent pull-through of ash, partially-burned marijuana, and, if I'm not vigilant, burning seeds. Once you make the transition to glass pipes, screens are counterintuitive.

 

Swoosh: over my head.

The defense would answer

Your Honor, Hic ad Hoc
Hickory Dickory Dock

and if I was on the jury I'd vote 'not guilty'.

 

Is all of this just more long, drawn-out legalese for people not being responsible for their own actions?

The Devil made me do it, huh? I ain't my fault!

Baron Max

 

if the helicopters weren't reporters, but just rubber-neckers, would the guy still be liable?

Pretend I'm drunk driving, go into the ditch, cops arrive, set up flares. A person get rear ended due to rubber-necking. Am I responsible?